Notable Hymns

A favorite feature on Jonathan Hunt’s blog finds a review of Notable Hymns. Here is how Jonathan intruduced the series:

As often as possible, I hope to post here some little-known, or perhaps forgotten, and possibly even recently-composed, hymns and psalm versions from my collection of books, but especially from Psalms and Hymns of Reformed Worship, which is the in-house hymnbook at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. First issued in 1991, this hymnbook revitalised the tradition of having psalm versions, metricals, paraphrases, and/or expansions, for all 150 psalms in a seperate section, like CH Spurgeon did in his Our Own Hymnbook. As Phil Johnson remarked on his blog (you would have to scroll back through the archives to 3 July), traditional worship is not dead, but very much alive.

I did think of writing a long para about modern worship here, or CCM as it is known. But a million things have been written, and more forcefully than I could. I will link some good articles on the subject at a later date.Call me old-fashioned, but I stick with hymns and psalms, written in whatever age, that are profound, doctrinally rich, and reverent. It is to introduce you all (whoever you are!) to some of these that I will post here.

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3 comments

I agree with your emphasis about singing and hymns and psalms and making sure the “word of God” is preiminent in all of them. However, I am concerned on two counts about the more contermporary singing I hear in our Reformed Churches today many times. I agree with the Contemporary approach that we should sing enthusiastically and passionately the expressions of words in our worship and praise toward our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ. That to me is “not existing” in many Reformed Baptist and/or other congregations. They sound as if they are very “sad” and very “careful” not to be passionate and enthusiastic about the Lord at all as if that may be some type of a sin or be irreverant. That should not be so. Even David danced before the Lord with great expression at one time and was criticized by his wife and she was chastized by our Lord because of that. We must be very, very careful we do not enter into judgment of others on this and also not be guilty of “forbidding” such in our services as we worship Him in song. Of course, the words of the “newer” praise and worship songs can be many times unbiblical just like a hymn could be. We understand that. But I have found that many of the modern contemporary praise songs are very biblical, much more so than many of our older hymns, and also, have a element of “prayer and reverence and worship” in them as we sing these prayers unto Him in a song format. That to me has been more meaningful and drawn me closer to Him in worship than many of the “duller” non expressionless hymns that may be even biblical. I fear we have become so legalistic and controlling on this that we may be missing something very important and very much of a blessing to glorify our great God utilizing some of the modern contemporay praise songs. Also, sometimes the very “music” background needs to be changed to reflect our devotion and passion for our great God as we glorify Him. Saying that, I still enjoy and believe that we can worship Him in a slow style, more moderate style, and more somber approach at times also. My point is we should not be “on either side” so dogmatic that we “throw out” things that the word of God doesn’t not condemn but rather embrace them and be more open to God’s word and practices He would endorse and be pleased with. We have seen so much “anger” and “divisions” over this that it is amazing. I remember reading an article written on music and the divisions it was causing and I thought I was reading a current event. But at the end it was shown to have been written back sevearl hundred years ago when the Church was having trouble placing an organ in the meeting places. Folks were really up in arms about that. I thought things really haven’t changed. Today, folks think you can’t worship without an organ, or a piano, or they think you are not really worshipping unless you sings “a few 100 years” old written hymns as if they were from the days of Christ, or conversely the other crowd thinks you can’t sing the hymns at all for that dates you and isn’t really Christians expressions of true worship, etc.! Also if you don’t have a band or drums they think you don’t really worship and praise God correctly. Both are wrong in my judgment as I have read the scriptures also and find no place for either posture!
Both postures are and can be very scriptural and very honoring to our Lord and my contention is we should have any and all expressions of praise with all instruments of all kinds and every type of vocal experssions that are around if they are not sounding out unbilibcal teachings. Our personal expressions of joy and praise are just that and God honors them all. In fact, if we go to the Mission Fields we find various types of styles in music and expression by Christians that we do not see here in America. Cultures vary but I have no problem adding any cultures approach even in our religious staid styles here in America if they are not dishonoring to Christ and His word. I trust this has been helpful to you and I only wrote it not really knowing your position at all. But hopefully to share with you how the Lord has blessed me in these areas of thought and functionality in worshipping Him. God bless you and your Church as you seek to serve Him and reach others with the Gospel.

Thanks for your comment LC. These links are for a series that Jonathan Hunt has been doing to bring to our attention many old and perhaps forgotten hymns.

In our church we strive to worship in spirit and truth, understanding that we are instructed in Scripture to sing Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs. Therefore we use many different forms or styles of music, all based on sound Biblical content. We strinve to worship in such a way that our lips match our hearts. And we understand that Biblical worship is not bound to only one culture here on earth. So we agree with your concerns and share your desire to praise and worship our God in a manner that is pleasing to Him!

LC, thanks for your long post. I can’t say I disagree with you. We are not contending here (or on my blog) for old or ‘traditional’ things just for the sake of it, but rather, we are contending for the BEST things. Perhaps you might be interested in my sermon – What is Worship?: